Book Information: Misalliance

Shaw originally gave Misalliance the subtitle, "A Debate in One Sitting." It is set in the Surrey home of the Tarleton family, who over the course of one spring day in 1909 are visited by daughter Hypatia's fiancee and his father, a daredevil aviator, a headstrong young Polish woman, and an intruder. Everyone has something to say about courtship, marriage, the sexes, and social conventions ... and say it they do in an interminably talky play that showcases what has become known as Shavian wit. Although Misalliance was one of Shaw's flops, its social criticism takes aim at many of the same targets of his better-known works.